Climate Integration
The artwork will produce legible lighting depictions of tidal patterns- i.e. low and high tides, extreme tides, etc - by subscribing to weather and climate related data, collected in real time from a number of available sources, including data published by NASA, NOAA, and other sources. The artwork transforms these data streams into light, color, animation, and movement through the artwork programming, running on custom software.
While multitudes of climate data is available, we can think of no more pertinent data than the sentiment of the humans who live, work, traverse and otherwise exist in the coastal region near this bridge. Our intention is to elevate the stories of real people, through small-group settings, by capturing recorded audio of the thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, memories and stories of anyone who cares to offer theirs. It is these offerings, these audio sentiments, these accumulating rhythms, that we will analyze, process and ingest as critical data to produce abstract animations in counterpoint to the tidal gestures.
Partnering with leading educational and environmental groups, we will conduct hundreds of workshop about tidal activity, coastal ecosystems, and ecological thinking. Through these touch points we will solicit community audio offerings, recording these into what will become a substantial repository of local ecological sentiment. Commencing before the first light is installed, and continuing throughout the lifespan of the project, this survey will become a living archive of ecological thinking. This archive will be utilized in ongoing research and could also fuel exhibits, papers, and more as the greater expressions of Accumulating Rhythms compound.
What we believe is critical is evolving the perspective that climate data is only or most valuable if it is produced by weather stations and modeled using complex algorithms. Of course these are crucial, but they should not eclipse the stories of our ancestors passed down over time, the memories of winters with more snow, the hope for the return of disappearing species, the pure hopes of a young person facing an uncertain future. It is in the combination of these offerings, made abstract through light expressing their rhythmical, dynamic and spectral signatures in grand gestures juxtaposed with the Earth's profound tidal rhythms that we hope to create a sensual dialogue observable nightly.